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Three members of committee looking at alternatives to Whole Foods quit in disgust
By adamg on Tue, 06/07/2011 - 5:22pm
Anne Mackin, one of fifteen members of the neighborhood council's Whole Foods Committee, says last week's chaotic meeting with Whole Foods managers - which ended with three arrests - was the final straw for her.
In a letter posted by the pro-Whole Foods JP for All, Mackin writes:
When I joined the committee, I thought I was signing up to help my community shed light on the issues surrounding the controversy of Whole Foods. I care deeply about the issues of gentrification and displacement. During some of my 22 years in Jamaica Plain, I wrote a book that deals extensively with these topics (Americans and Their Land, 2006). I invited Ben Forman, Research Director at MassInc and a JP resident, to address the committee on the ways Boston housing policy causes gentrification and displacement. However, most committee members seemed interested in displacement only in as far as they could blame Whole Foods for it, and interested only in research that confirmed their prejudices. A few seemed unable to believe that anyone who welcomed Whole Foods was not "selfish" or "racist."
Mackin said two other members are also resigning with her, although she did not name them.
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Comments
Sadly,
the wrong people are leaving the Ad Hoc Committee. After the nonsense Whose Foods/Whose Community pulled at the Whole Foods meeting last week, the JPNC should have demanded THEIR resignations.
I give these folks credit for hanging in there so long.
come on!!! the last one had
come on!!! the last one had like 100+ comments! Should I come back around 11?
Bravo!
I saw that "displacement" banner in the pictures and wondered WTF? Why is Whole Foods moving in responsible for a longstanding pattern?
I'm glad that there are people who understand the larger problem, and are fed up with those who can't "protesting" and "demonstrating" about it.
key sentence in resignation letter
Dr. Erica Bial's resignation letter had this key sentence:
http://jamaicaplain.patch.com/articles/letter-resi...
As I've said from the beginning, this is a shakedown from the poverty pimp non-profits.
It won't end until there's some financial or political pressure on the non-profits and their allies. Defund the "community development" non-profits, and the neighborhood will be allowed to, you know, develop.
When Arroyo loses his seat in November, it might give others pause to indulge in this kind of nonsense.
Welcome to Massachusetts
This is why there is expensive housing, why there is economic stagnation, why there is no comprehensive planning for development and reuse of land: zoning doesn't mean anything when someone wants trinkets and bon bons, is allowed to challenge conforming projects on a project-by-project basis, and to run for office on the resulting buzz.
An actual participatory zoning process embedded in comprehensive land use planning would alleviate a lot of these problems - which is why this bozo bus and many others throughout the area want nothing of it.
Question
When you refer to the "bozo bus" is this the same "poverty pimp non-profits" that Deselby refers to? I think quite a number of Community Development Corporations and other n'hood, social-service related non-profits are interested in comprehensive land use planning, where the people directly affected have a say in the matter. (I don't imagine you are against that, which is why I am asking the clarifying question as to whom you are referring.)
Do community groups dig in their heels and "extort" whatever concessions they can get from a developer? Hell yes. When small developers who moonlight for the city can repeatedly dance around zoning codes, when political contributors regularly pay off City Hall for whatever it is they want to build, when deep pockets on Beacon Hill and in the Back Bay can pick up a phone and deep-6 projects they don't like, then yes, community groups will join in with the only thing they got -- their obnoxious little voices.
In this instance I think the Whose F people are pretty confused and their inability to allow a rational discussion on the topic indicates that perhaps they know it. Are they being used by local pols and/or organizations, I don't know - I don't live there nor am I involved in this crap. But to say that local people can't try and make their voices heard on an issue and get something in the same way that every moneyed and leveraged interest in the City already is, seems really ...not good. But again, in this particular case, I think WF has a good track record of philanthropy (as good as it gets in corporate culture) and treating employees fairly and most saliently gentrification has already been occurring (many of the protesters are part of it) and preventing WF would do nothing to change things.
With all due respect Deselby,
With all due respect Deselby, if you think the crime in Egleston and other rough areas in that vicinity is bad, you have no idea what it would be if these "poverty pimp non-profits" were shuttered... Where do you think all of those kids will go?
I think the Whole Foods mess is a big joke personally, but you should know what you are talking about regarding these organization before you suggest them being defunded.
Another resignation letter
From Erica Bial, with reply from committee Chairman Steve Laferriere.
Beautifully articulate
Sadly, this hostile, selfish environment does not only exist at the municipal micro-level, but also at the macro-scale of our entire country. This is the way political discussions are running now. They're violent, uncontrolled, and utterly lack civil discourse. No longer can you have a serious discussion about anything without people making everything about race and social status. This is due to the fact that fewer and fewer people are actually informed enough to have a well-formed opinion and those who do are not heard/listened to. The dumbing-down of the United States and world continues to advance at an uncontrollable rate as details are stripped from us and what's left is spoonfed to us. Our politics have been dumbed-down by absurd, unrelated smear campaigns and self-proclaimed leaders that don't know what they're doing or the history of our own country. It's a trend that is sadly branching out far beyond politics. Logic and reason take the backseat and suddenly, human emotions and impulses become the focal point.
Now that I've got that aside, these letters were beautifully articulate and I enjoyed reading both. They touch on a lot of strong points. It saddens me to say this, but I'm not surprised that no one actually cared about her book or took her and her guest seriously. Getting rhetorical now- why bother reading a book or listening to professional speak about an issue they have studied for years, when you can go to friends or the internet and have them tell you that "all people who are pro-WF are racist?" Isn't the latter just a colossal waste of time?
Whole Foods Hysteria Video
After seeing this video it should be clear to everyone what a threat a JP Whole Foods represents. Study it carefully and let us pray we can avoid this calamity.